Why is Apple virtually giving away this platform to third-party applications developers? Wouldn’t it be more profitable for Apple to generate more revenue from its App Store? Apple has hit three home runs in less than ten years—the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Apple sold three million iPads within 80 days of its release, and there were 25,000 iPad-specific apps in Apple’s App Store within six months. Like iPhone apps, many iPad apps are free because they display ads that produce revenues for developers. So far, Apple is not taking a cut on the ad revenues, and developers keep 70 percent of the money that they take in from paid-for consumer applications. Publishers in Apple’s iBook app keep 70 percent of the money they take in. Consequently, Barnes and Noble’s Nook and Amazon’s Kindle increased the percentage of revenue publishers earn to 70 percent as well. Forecasters are predicting that iPad sales in 2011 will reach 20 to 30 million, which has competitors worried.